Sanitizing equipment with bleach that had infection

I had 2 batches go bad on me recently. My Pumpkin Ale had lacto infection (visible on top) and after bottling it and waiting a few weeks it tasted like ass.

I also did a Belgin Wit that came out looking ok but tasted sour. I kegged it, tried it a week later and it tasted even more sour. So nasty that it was not drinkable, I dumped the batch.

I had another batch French Saison that I thought was infected but it came out very good and I drank every drop of it.

My question is how much bleach do I use to make sure I dont have any nasties in my primaries. Also what if I have wild yeast living in my apartment, is there something I can spray in the kitchen to kill it?

Instead of bleach, I'd go with a thorough cleaning. Use a good cleaner like PBW. If you don't want to buy that, go with a HOT Oxyclean Free soak. The cleaning will remove any biological build up. Rinse well, and repeat if you feel inclined.

Follow that with some good sanitation. Bleach would work, but make sure you rinse very well. I'd be inclined to go with a slightly stronger than "no rinse" Starsan mixture. It might not hurt to spray your counters with a regular dilution of Starsan also.

I used bleach at "lab strength" on my equipment after I got an infection (lacto, I think). First, get rid of organic matter by an overnight soak in oxyclean. Then dilute the bleach 20-fold with water and sit for at least 1 hour. Make sure every surface is covered by bleach. Take O-rinks, gaskets, spigots etc apart, soak wine thief, all tubing etc - anything and everything that may have been touched by the infected beer. Then rinse rinse rinse and rinse again.

This appeared to work for me. No infections since. YMMV, and some people prefer to just chuck everything plastic and start again.

You are not going to be able to kill an airborne yeast (but it won't hurt to use a bleach-containing cleaner in your kitchen). You will still need to sanitize right before you use anything too. Sanitation is gone as soon as some bug has a chance to settle on your equipment. So use foamy starsan - dunk everything in a big bucket of it right before using.

Good luck!

if your using plastic equipment i would just toss it and buy new. there could be a scratch your not seeing that the nasties are living in safe and sound. if your using metal and/or glass i would clean with PBW and sanitize with StarSan.

Check out the Basic Brewing Radio episode from 3-29-07. This is the tag line from the show.

"Charlie Talley of Five Star Chemicals tells us best practices in using household bleach and Star San in sanitizing equipment."

very informative

This CDC web page suggests 1 cup of bleach per 5 gal water for sanitizing clean "food cans and services" or 1 cup per 1 gal if you have mold on it. http://www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/bleach.asp
So I would go with 1 cup per 1 gal this time, and 1 cup per 5 gal for regular sanitising before use. Don't forget to rinse well.

Scooby_Brew said:

This CDC web page suggests 1 cup of bleach per 5 gal water for sanitizing clean "food cans and services" or 1 cup per 1 gal if you have mold on it. http://www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/bleach.asp
So I would go with 1 cup per 1 gal this time, and 1 cup per 5 gal for regular sanitising before use. Don't forget to rinse well.

Click to expand...

That was about what I had. It is what we use in the lab to kill anything from bacterial fermentations before tipping the stuff down the drain (with lots of water).

I've wondered about using an air purifier if I start doing stuff in my basement. Do these things really work and are they worth the expense?

I soaked it overnight with PBW and I did soak it in Starsan. I want to do another batch of sanitizing with bleach. I will try nuking it with bleach and will brew again using the same equipment. 2 of my Coopers breweries are not going anywhere, I have another bucket that I bought for $20 (sour) which I can toss if it comes to that.

I actually jokingly blamed it on a girl I was seeing. I started seeing her the day I brewed Pumpkin Ale which had lacto and tasted like ass. Belgian Wit was done the following week and I said it was her yeast infection that caused it

I am not seeing her anymore, will clean up everything and get brewing!!!

WOW...1 cup bleach per 1 gallon water?!?!? I've been using 1tbl/1gallon on everything that has touched my sours and not had any issue at all. I try to limit the use of everything that has touched the sour, but there are just some things I can't avoid. a cup seems like an awful lot.

1 cup per 5 gal is what I have been using for years, IMO 1 cup per 1 gal is for extra sanitizing if you had mold or some other infection.